Andrew Coyne: Lack of accounting leading to lack of accountability in Parliament

Lack of accounting leading to lack of accountability in Parliament

Probably there was never a time when members of Parliament wore green eyeshades. Probably they have never examined government spending proposals as closely as they should. Probably it is not even possible, given the size and scope to which government has grown, and the limited expertise, time and resources available to parliamentarians.

But that does not mean current practice is remotely acceptable. If it is unlikely ever to be what it should be, it is still a long way from what it could be. Indeed, there is accumulating evidence that the “Business of Supply,” the ancient prerogative of Parliament to approve or reject the provision of funds to the Crown, has all but broken down altogether. Like so much else in our current, largely ceremonial Parliament, members are more or less going through the motions, deprived of either the time or the facts they need to make an informed vote.

This goes far beyond the current conflict between the government and the Parliamentary Budget Officer, but let’s start there. As originally envisioned, the PBO promised to make a substantial contribution to parliamentary government, armed with a legal mandate “provide independent analysis to the Senate and to the House of Commons about the state of the nation’s finances, the estimates of the government and trends in the national economy,” as well as “the financial cost of any proposal” before either House. And what wise and far-seeing government brought it into being? Why the present one, of course.

Yet the reality, under that same government, has been far different. While the PBO has done much good work, it has faced continued harassment, intimidation and obstruction in its efforts to obtain information on government spending plans, past, present and future. It was famously lied to in the matter of the F-35 contract, provided estimates that deliberately understated the cost of the planes by $10-billion, as the Auditor General later confirmed. In the present matter, more than 60 government departments have failed to date to provide it with the information it has sought on the impact of government spending cuts, though many had promised to do so.

(Indeed, senior ministers have denied the PBO even has the mandate to inquire into such matters — in talking-pointese, it is supposed to examine “what government spends, not what it does not spend.” The office has announced it will seek a legal opinion on whether it is indeed acting within its mandate; assuming the answer is yes, it would then seem headed to the courts to enforce its demands.)

If it’s any consolation to MPs, ministers are kept almost as much in the dark as they are

But, as I say, that is but the latest example of a more general problem. Much more serious is the weakened state of traditional oversight mechanisms. Part of the government’s defence, after all, is that Parliament already has all the information it needs: In addition to the annual budget, setting out the government’s overall spending plans for the year, members are provided with a more detailed breakdown via the main estimates, together with a statement of each department’s “plans and priorities.”

Which is true, except:

The estimates, which by law must be issued by March 1, as often as not come out before the budget, which can come at any time. As such they may bear no relationship to current year’s spending plans, requiring a separate set of supplemental estimates later in the year; indeed, it sometimes takes years before budget initiatives show up in the estimates.

Indeed, the budget and the estimates are not even written in the same fiscal language. Figures in the budget are expressed on an accrual basis, meaning they are entered on the books “as incurred,” i.e. at the time the decision is made. By contrast, the estimates use cash accounting.

In the same way as the budget, MPs do not receive departments’ “plans and priorities” reports, spelling out what their objectives are for the coming year and how they will measure their progress against them, until weeks after the estimates, making it hard for them to put these numbers in context.

Finally, the estimates are broken down by type of payment — operating versus capital; grants and contributions versus internal departmental spending — rather than by the expenditure’s intended purpose. This is how money gets shifted from, say, infrastructure along the border to gazebos in Muskoka.

The estimates … are virtually meaningless, where they are not misleading

The estimates, in other words, are virtually meaningless, where they are not misleading. That and the sheer crush of time mean “standing committees are at best giving perfunctory attention to the government’s spending plans,” as the Commons committee on Government Operations and Estimates reported last spring. It included some sensible suggestions for reform: bring out the budget before the estimates, for example, and “plans and priorities” concurrent with them, and maybe look at using the same accounting system throughout. Most were summarily dismissed by the government last week.

If it’s any consolation to MPs, ministers are kept almost as much in the dark as they are. As the Auditor General reported, this week, cabinet routinely signs off on major spending decisions without knowing their long-term impact on the government’s fiscal position. Such analysis was not conducted with respect to last March’s budget, for example, until August. A government that is less and less accountable to Parliament, it seems, is hardly able to account at all.